Focusing on key Arab films produced in the last 20 years. Férid Boughedir traces the development of the film-makers' concern to produce more socially aware cinema. Themes include the issue of Palestinian homeland rights and the nature of Arab identity. The film-makers also share a desire to develop a strong poetic tradition.
Gérard Courant's "Filmed Diary" of December 14, 2011, produced in Dubai (United Arab Emirates). Between December 7 and 15, 2011, Gérard Courant was invited by the Dubai International Film Festival, in the United Arab Emirates. It was an opportunity for him to film many "Cinematons" of personalities from the Arab world and to continue his "Film Notebooks" from which he brought back 7 episodes.
In the 12th century's Andalusia lives Ibn Rushd a prominent Islamic philosopher with his wife Zeinab and daughter Salma. The principality is ruled by Khalifa ElMansour who has two sons, ElNasser, an intellectual that likes Ibn Rush and is in love with his daughter Salma. The younger son Abdallah is more into dancing and poetry, spending most of his times with the gypsy family and getting the daughter pregnant. The Khalifa is depending on the extremists to build his army granting them more power which they use to combat artists and philosophers. The extremists succeed in recruiting Abd Allah and train him to kill his father. Events go on where Marawan, the gypsy singer, is killed and Ibn Rushd's books are burnt. Adapted from the real life of Ibn Rushd AlMasir is Chahine's statement against extremism.
A man recollects the conflict in the middle east through his personal memory. In this short documentary, Amiralay reflects on the first time he heard of Israel. Through recorded conversations with filmmaker Mohamed Malas, both Amiralay and Malas share their own unique stories and experiences about Israel and Israeli occupation. In the company of fellow Syrian filmmaker Mohammad Malas, the ground-breaking director Omar Amiralay revisits the ruins of the destroyed Golan village of Quneytra, occupied by Israel and then abandoned following the 1973 war.
